First Lady Hosts G20 Spouses

G20 Summit first ladies tour royal palace, watch traditional musical and fashion performances and Korean foods

First Lady Kim Yun-ok more than did her job in assisting her husband President Lee Myung-bak for the successful, conclusion of the G20 Summit in Seoul Nov. 11-12 by hosting spouses of the heads of state gathered in the key global meeting that took place for the first time in Seoul with Korea as the chair nation. The event was organized by the Seoul Metropolitan Government.
The first lady invited 13 first ladies who were on a visit to Seoul along with their husbands participating the G20 Summit to tour Changdok Palace, one of the five old palaces in Seoul left over from the Jeoson Dynasty and held a lunch for them. The palace has retains very much the original traces as a royal palace, especially, its architectural harmony with nature which qualified the palace to be designated as an UNESCO World Cultural Legacy in 1997.
The palace was built first in 1405, the second royal palace after Gyeongbok Palace in Seoul and its garden that the first ladies visited has been named as the three most ancient gardens in Asia.
The first ladies toured the Buyong Pond, which still maintains a traditional style Korean garden, a royal library the Gyujang-kak and watched a performance of the traditional Korean music performance played with traditional Korean musical instruments including Gayagum, a stringed Korean cello, Haegum, and Daegum, among others. They also watched a fashion show on traditional Korean attires, performed by 20 fashion models. The models displayed royal palatial attires both kings and queens during the Jeoson Dynasty (1392-1910), dresses worn during the middle of the dynasty, general traditional Korean clothes, Hanbok, Hanbok for parties and a traditional Korean jacket with both golden and silver decorations and high fashion Korean traditional dresses in various bright colors.
Following the tour of the palace, they moved to Seongbuk-dong in Seoul to tour the Korea Furniture Museum to take a look at the traditional Korean furniture on display at the museum, where they saw a number of Korean chests with in-laid pearls made with woods cut in various sizes and shapes. They also saw a number of traditional residential houses with thatched roofs and over 2,000 pieces of traditional Korean furniture.
At the lunch, the menu included various traditional Korean foods to go along with the traditional air of the museum and the palace and made with fish, meat, and vegetables.
The First Lady told her guests that she and her husband, the President, lived in a traditional Korean house, one of whose advantages is harmony with nature, she said. She personally selected the menu to introduce the nucleus of Korean traditional foods to the foreign first ladies in her bid to publicize the flavor of the Korean foods to the world. First lady Kim told the guests that she was very glad to host them on the occasion of G20 Summit in Seoul and she will continue to value the friendship and other relationships that she shared with them in her entire life.
During the previous day in the evening of Nov. 11, the First Lady played the hostess to the spouses of the heads of state attending G20 Summit in Seoul at a dinner held at the Leeum Museum of Art in Yongsan, Seoul, managed by Mrs. Hong Ra-hee, the wife of Chairman Lee Kun-hee of Samsung Group. Just before moving to the museum, the First Lady through a reception at the Korea National Museum and moved to Leeum on a bus and Leeum Musem Director Hong welcomed the foreign first ladies at the lobby of Leeum. They posed for a group photo session at the lobby just before entering the hall where the official dinner was ready.
First Lady Kim told her guests of honor they were welcome in Seoul as the utmost honorable visitors to the city by the entire Korean people, especially, residents in the capital city as the G20 Summit is the most important international meeting that Korea ever hosted as the chair nation in its history.
Some of you are not new to Korea, she said and some of you are new to visit this country. I hope you will make your memories of this country by feeling and seeing its culture and the generosity of the Korean people. nw

Korean First Lady Kim Yun-ok attends an event to invite spouses of the G20 leaders at Changdok Palace.

(Courtesy on the Presidential Committee for the G20 Seoul Summit)